Perhaps there is no people in the world, possessing the average amount
of intelligence in busy communities, who care so little for politics
as the general body of the Jews. The wealthy classes may take an
interest in the matter, but I am assured, and by those who know their
countrymen well, that even with them such a quality as patriotism is a
mere word. This may be accounted for in a great measure, perhaps, from
an hereditary feeling. The Jew could hardly be expected to love a land,
or to strive for the promotion of its general welfare, where he felt
he was but a sojourner, and where he was at the best but tolerated and
often proscribed. But this feeling becomes highly reprehensible when it
extends--as I am assured it does among many of the rich Jews--to their
own people, for whom, apart from conventionalities, say my informants,
_they care nothing whatever_; for so long as they are undisturbed in
money-getting at home, their brethren may be persecuted all over the
world, while the rich Jew merely shrugs his shoulders. An honourable
exception, however, exists in Sir Moses Montefiore, who has honourably
distinguished himself in the relief of his persecuted brethren on more
than one occasion. The great of the earth no longer spit upon the
gabardine of the Jewish millionaire, nor do they draw his teeth to
get his money, but the great Jew capitalists, with powerful influence
in many a government, do not seek to direct that influence for the
bettering of the lot of their poorer brethren, who, at the same time,
brook the restrictions and indignities which they have to suffer with
a perfect philosophy. In fact, the Jews have often been the props of
the courts who have persecuted them; that is to say, two or three
Jewish firms occasionally have not hesitated to lend millions to the
governments by whom they and their people have been systematically
degraded and oppressed.
I was told by a Hebrew gentleman (a professional man) that so little
did the Jews themselves care for “Jewish emancipation,” that he
questioned if one man in ten, actuated solely by his own feelings,
would trouble himself to walk the length of the street in which he
lived to secure Baron Rothschild’s admission into the House of Commons.
This apathy, my informant urged with perfect truth, in nowise affected
the merits of the question, though he was convinced it formed a great
obstacle to Baron Rothschild’s success; “for governments,” he said,
“won’t give boons to people who don’t care for them; and, though this
is called a boon, I look upon it as only a _right_.”
When such is the feeling of the comparatively wealthier Jews, no one
can wonder that I found among the Jewish street-sellers and old-clothes
men with whom I talked on the subject--and their more influential
brethren gave me every facility to prosecute my inquiry among them--a
perfect indifference to, and nearly as perfect an ignorance of,
politics. Perhaps no men buy so few newspapers, and read them so
little, as the Jews generally. The street-traders, when I alluded to
the subject, said they read little but the “Police Reports.”
Among the body of the Jews there is little love of Literature.
They read far less (let it be remembered I have acquired all this
information from Jews themselves, and from men who could not be
mistaken in the matter), and are far less familiar with English
authorship, either historical or literary, than are the poorer English
artizans. Neither do the wealthiest classes of the Jews care to
foster literature among their own people. One author, a short time
ago, failing to interest the English Jews, to promote the publication
of his work, went to the United States, and his book was issued in
Philadelphia, the city of Quakers!
The Amusements of the Jews--and here I speak more especially of the
street or open-air traders--are the theatres and concert-rooms. The
City of London Theatre, the Standard Theatre, and other playhouses at
the East-end of London, are greatly resorted to by the Jews, and more
especially by the younger members of the body, who sometimes constitute
a rather obstreperous gallery. The cheap concerts which they patronize
are generally of a superior order, for the Jews are fond of music, and
among them have been many eminent composers and performers, so that the
trash and jingle which delights the costermonger class would not please
the street Jew boys; hence their concerts are superior to the general
run of cheap concerts, and are almost always “got up” by their own
people.
Sussex-hall, in Leadenhall-street, is chiefly supported by Israelites;
there the “Jews’ and General Literary and Scientific Institution” is
established, with reading-rooms and a library; and there lectures,
concerts, &c., are given as at similar institutions. Of late, on every
Friday evening, Sussex-hall has been thrown open to the general public,
without any charge for admission, and lectures have been delivered
gratuitously, on literature, science, art, and general subjects, which
have attracted crowded audiences. The lecturers are chiefly Jews, but
the lectures are neither theological nor sectarian. The lecturers
are Mr. M. H. Bresslau, the Rev. B. H. Ascher, Mr. J. L. Levison (of
Brighton), and Mr. Clarke, a merchant in the City, a Christian, whose
lectures are very popular among the Jews. The behaviour of the Jew
attendants, and the others, the Jews being the majority, is decorous.
They seem “to like to receive information,” I was told; and a gentleman
connected with the hall argued that this attention showed a readiness
for proper instruction, when given in an attractive form, which
favoured the opinion that the young Jews, when not thrown in childhood
into the vortex of money-making, were very easily teachable, while
their natural quickness made them both ready and willing to be taught.
My old-clothes buying informant mentioned a Jewish eating-house. I
visited one in the Jew quarter, but saw nothing to distinguish it from
Christian resorts of the same character and cheapness (the “plate” of
good hot meat costing 4_d._, and vegetables 1_d._), except that it was
fuller of Jews than of Christians, by three to two, perhaps, and that
there was no “pork” in the waiter’s specification of the fare.